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I recently remembered hearing about an experiment where a group of basketball players were used to determine if mental imagery has any affect on athletic ability.
The control group wasn't allowed to practice free throws at all.
The 2nd group was only allowed to visualize practicing free throws
The 3rd group was only allowed to physically practice free throws.
I didn't remember anything more about the experiment so I did a bit of digging and dug up an article that mentions this experiment as well as Vocalist-violinist Emilie Autumn who claims to have used this visualization method successfully so I thought I'd share it here - especially since we're all working hard on Pachelbel's Cannon 
http://expertenough.com/1898/v.....tion-works
Another great example comes from one of my favorite artists. Emilie Autumn, who is a great violinist, and claims that her music writing skills were developed by playing Pachelbel’s Canon in D mentally every night just to suppress her auditory hallucinations.
She would picture herself playing it with her violin while still being very young.Imagine all the hours she accumulated playing in her mind. That could actually get you closer to the 10,000 hour mark.
I'd like to believe that last bit is true, that this method could potentially help you reach that magical 10,000 hrs sooner.
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World Famous motivator Tony Robbins is a huge proponent of visualizing your success. I totally believe in it and its part of the see it, say it, do it learning style. You can practice all three mentallly as well as physically. It also prepares your mind so you can focus on your specific practice. Good stuff! IMO. ish, kinda, sorta peace pfish.
"Please play some wrong notes, so that we know that you are human" - said to Jascha Heifetz.
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I would say that at the very least, the visualizations mentioned would be more effective than visualizing failure.
I would guess that if one could ask all the top players in the world from all genres, at least most of them spent some time daydreaming about playing wonderfully and perfectly at times when they couldn't physically be playing. So there probably is something to it.
In any case, what is there to lose from it?
"This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in 5 or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development." ~ Itzhak Perlman
When I first read this post the movie “the Music Man” popped into my head - the part where he tells the boys not to pick up their instruments, but to just use the Think Method to learn Beethoven's Minuet in G. A funny concept.... but now I think the idea has merit!
I’m very new again to playing violin (not quite two weeks into it, after a 50 year sabbatical) and enjoying the learning process, but playing pieces like “go tell Aunt Rody” was making me a little stir crazy. I found a sheet of music I had for a ballad that was slow enough for me to follow, yet pretty simple. My problem came with one section where there was fingering of six notes on 3 strings all in very close succession. My clumsy fingers just weren’t cooperating and the song fell miserably apart. I was going to just put this song away till I have more experience under my belt.
Then I remembered this post and decided to try it. So when I was done practicing I starting to think and visualize playing the (to me) complicated measure. I went to bed thinking about it, and visualizing it over and over. This morning I picked up my violin and found that my fingers weren’t stumbling all over each other, and actually made it all the way through the song… not beautifully, but I hit all the notes, and reasonably in time..... who’d a thunk???
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Ginnysg said
When I first read this post the movie “the Music Man” popped into my head - the part where he tells the boys not to pick up their instruments, but to just use the Think Method to learn Beethoven's Minuet in G. A funny concept.... but now I think the idea has merit!
I’m very new again to playing violin (not quite two weeks into it, after a 50 year sabbatical) and enjoying the learning process, but playing pieces like “go tell Aunt Rody” was making me a little stir crazy. I found a sheet of music I had for a ballad that was slow enough for me to follow, yet pretty simple. My problem came with one section where there was fingering of six notes on 3 strings all in very close succession. My clumsy fingers just weren’t cooperating and the song fell miserably apart. I was going to just put this song away till I have more experience under my belt.
Then I remembered this post and decided to try it. So when I was done practicing I starting to think and visualize playing the (to me) complicated measure. I went to bed thinking about it, and visualizing it over and over. This morning I picked up my violin and found that my fingers weren’t stumbling all over each other, and actually made it all the way through the song… not beautifully, but I hit all the notes, and reasonably in time..... who’d a thunk???
I thunk that it's possible
As Shakespeare said:
"There are more things in heaven and on earth, Horatio,
than are dreamt of in your philosophy." 
Seen it all. Done it all. Can't remember most of 
..... What was I saying???? 
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